As the New Year approaches, we
look back to the past to assess our successes and failures, and we look into
the future with thoughts of doing better. We reflect on the changes we'd like
to make and resolve to do our best to follow through on keeping them. Did your New
Year's Resolutions make my list of the Top 8?

1.Spend more time
with friends and family – All of us need to socialize. Work is necessary, but
spending time with people we enjoy will make us happier individuals. And who
doesn't want to be happier?

2.Lose weight – I don't
know about you, but I put on a few extra pounds every Thanksgiving and
Christmas. *sigh*

3.Get fit – As I
get older, staying firm and fit becomes more difficult. But I refuse to give up!

4.Spend more time communing
with nature – I love being out in the open air, listening to the birds sing,
feeling the sunshine on my face. Albert Einstein said, "Look deep into
nature, and then you will understand everything better." He wasn't
considered a genius for nuthin'!

5.Do more of what
makes you happy – This one doesn't need much explanation.

6.Quit smoking – I don't
smoke. I never have. But I just spent 3 months nursing my wonderful aunt
through chemo and radiation treatments for lung cancer. If you smoke, resolve
to quit. Your health depends on it.

8.Get organized –
This is on my New Year's Resolutions List each and every year. Not that I could
be featured on the TV show Hoarders or anything, but I would like to be a
little more organized. I'd love to have a place for everything and everything
in its place.

Mmmmm. My house smells like
warm cookies. Is there a better aroma than that at Christmas time? I just
finished making Peanut Butter Crisscross Cookies. This recipe is easy enough to
make with your children.

Peanut Butter Crisscross
Cookies

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup vegetable shortening

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 375º.

Mix together the peanut
butter, shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar. Add the egg and stir until
well incorporated. Add in the dry ingredients.

Roll dough into ¾ inch balls
and place on cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Press a fork into each cookie,
flattening slightly, to make a crisscross pattern.

Bake for approximately 9
minutes. Let cookies cool for a few minutes before removing them from the
cookie sheet.

*****

Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprint
Cookies:

Make dough as above and roll
into balls. Press thumb deeply into each cookie and bake for 9-10 minutes. Fill
thumbprints with your favorite jam or jelly.

*****

Tomorrow, I plan to make
Spritz Butter Cookies and Molasses Crinkles.

One of my Christmas guests is
vegan, so I'll also make a vegan Chocolate Torte. I'm kind of excited to make
this as it's a new-to-me recipe. Can't wait to taste it!

Come on! Don't wrinkle up your nose like that! Brussels sprouts are delicious. Especially when they're roasted. This easy side dish is delicious and good for you. It’s low-fat, low-calorie, and tastes SO
yummy… you can’t ask for more than that.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

1 ½ pounds of Brussels
sprouts

1 teaspoon course salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground
black pepper

a misting of olive oil

Wash and prepare Brussels
sprouts; trim off ends, pull off any yellowed or damaged outer leaves, and cut
larger sprouts in half. Mist sprouts lightly with olive oil, season with salt
and pepper, and arrange in a single layer on a roasting pan. Roast in a 400º F
(204º C) oven for 20-30 minutes or until sprouts are crispy on the outside,
tender on the inside. Shake pan occasionally so sprouts brown evenly.

Perfect for the vegans and
vegetarians who are coming to visit for the holidays.

If you're an avid reader like me, you know there are hundreds of thousands of
books to choose from. No one can sort through them all. Yet, there are books out there that really deserve to be read. So I've decided to showcase some authors I know and love.
Today, I'm featuring romance novels. In the coming days, I'll focus on other
genres simply because I've never read a genre I didn't love.

Enjoy the opening lines from
these novels and see if any (or all) of them tickle your fancy. J

Myrna MacKenzie's The
Rancher's Unexpected Family

Kathryn Ellis closed her eyes
and took a deep breath. What she was about to do, seeking out Holt Calhoun when
he clearly didn't want to be found…

Bunny Bergen's greatest weakness was her inability to see past
people's social veneers. Which was why she found herself standing with a
cardboard box tucked under one arm and a severance check in her other hand,
wondering what the heck had just happened.

"You didn't tell me the
Bar V5 held the Guinness World Record for the longest driveway." Rachel
Murphy stared out the window of her brother Tyler's 4x4 pickup. Against
Montana's big sky—a gorgeous, cloudless, cornflower blue this December morning—the
snow covering tree branches and mountaintops was white enough to eat, like
whipped cream or better yet meringue.

"Persuasion, Alabama, ain't even a town anymore, Sam Moss." The old
black man drew his antler-handled knife along a thick stick. Bark curled and
fell onto the cracked leather of his spit-shined wingtips. "It's just
scraps and bones."

You can find The Christmas Sister at Amazon. Visit Annie Jones at her website, and on Facebook.

Jackie Weger's On A Wing And
A Prayer

"Santee,
you hang on to Nicholas," Rebecca ordered as she lined up the five orphans
just inside the hangar door. She had an instant sensation of space and
unfamiliar shadow. The building, huge and poorly lit and smelling of grease,
much like a mechanic's garage, intensified the sensation. Rebecca shivered.
She'd had misgivings about this trip from the start, but her arguments against
it had fallen on deaf ears.

I'm baking
and my house is filled with the warm, buttery aromas only cookies can offer. Below are three of my favorite holiday recipes, but first I'd like to share some of my favorite baking
equipment. I couldn't live without my air bake cookie sheets. Since buying
mine, I haven't over-baked a single batch of cookies. I also love my cookie scoop; it makes each dough portion exactly the same (although, I believe mine is larger than the one I've linked to). And cooking spray is no
longer needed in my kitchen ever since my son gave me 2 Silpats; nothing sticks
to these babies, and that makes clean up easy. When my Silpats don't fit, I reach for the parchment paper. Okay, on to the recipes!

Southern Sour Cream Cookies

1 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ cups shortening

3 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons salt

5 cups all purpose flour

colored sugar crystals

Cream together the sugar and
the shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and stir
thoroughly after each addition. Add vanilla the vanilla, sour cream, baking
soda and salt. Mix well. Add flour and stir just until flour is incorporated. Drop
heaping teaspoons of dough about 2 inches apart onto cookie sheet lined with Silpat or parchment paper. Decorate with colored sugar crystals. Bake in a 400
degree oven for about 10 minutes. Cookies should be light in color…not golden
brown. These are delicate and delicious cookies that go perfect with tea or
coffee.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip (rear) & Oatmeal Coconut

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup butter

2/3 cup vegetable shortening

2 eggs

2 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

12 ounces semisweet chocolate
chips

Cream together the sugars,
the butter and the shortening until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla.
Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop dough by heaping teaspoonfuls about 2
inches apart onto cookie sheets lined with Silpat or parchment paper. Bake in a
375 degree oven until light brown, 10-12 minutes.

Note: The spatula pictured to the left belonged to my grandmother. She told me she used it when she "went to housekeeping." She gave it to me when I got married. I feel like she's with me every time I use it. ♥ I love nice memories.

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup raisins

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup (packed) flaked coconut

Cream the butter and the
sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla. Stir in dry
ingredients. Lastly, add raisins, oatmeal, and coconut. Stir until combined.
Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with Silpat or parchment paper. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.